Kindness of strangers

It had been a tough day for her that day. She had been handling irate customers since morning and had ended up getting delayed by an hour to pick up her cute little 8 yr old son and 10 year old daughter from school - which meant instead of the usual 5 pm, she ended up being in the school at six. To top it all, it had started drizzling.

It would be dark by the time they would reach home.

Things couldn’t have got worse !– she thought .

The faces of her eagerly waiting children on the gate of the school brought a small smile to her tired face. She hugged them and together they got into an already crowded bus and stood patiently albeit completely exhausted, to make the one hour journey standing along with people –a lot of them half wet and half sweaty. Uh ! How I wish I were at home right now! – she thought. The rain had intensified and she could hardly see anything outside.

As they neared their stop a good two hours later ( the heavy rains had caused traffic jams through out the city ), she gathered her children again, put them in the line of people who were exiting the bus. Collecting the folds of her saree, clutching her office bag, managing the umbrella in one hand and the children in another hand, she got down into the dark, lonely, rainy bus-stop - getting all set to start the last lap of her journey home – a two km walk from the bus-stop to their apartment.

She had walked about 5-10 steps with her children in the splashing rains, when she heard a voice from the back. To her surprise, it was the driver of the bus she had just alighted from, calling her.

Where do you have to go- he asked loudly making himself heard above the loud pouring of the heavy rain.

The house is a 2 KM down the lane – she shouted back.

Perhaps it was the heavy rains, perhaps it was her already difficult situation, perhaps it was the face of those two innocent children that she was trying to manage. Perhaps he did not like the look of the lonely road that the three of them were to walk down. God knows what came over the kind driver that day. He did something he had never ever done before. He knew it was not his regular duty and there might be people who might question him. But he did what his conscience called him to do. He said without showing any trace of emotion on his face- get back in - I will drop you to the house.

She was stupefied and stunned. She had been famished and hapless enough - and the two km walk on the muddy road in the rain would have been really messy and maybe a little scary. She couldn’t believe her ears and her good fortune. She accepted the help with a grateful smile and climbed back into the bus.

The bus took a two km diversion from its normal route and dropped the young mother and the children to their apartment gate.

It had happened at least 25 years back. Life has moved on and she has long retired from her job. But the gratitude that she and her children feel for the unknown driver whose spontaneous timely gesture of help at her frustrating situation, still lingers and the memories of that night have stayed in their minds forever.